A Place of Hiding

Their sojourn had begun hopefully enough. Despite the desperate quality of his sister’s situation, Cherokee possessed that can-do attitude that Deborah recalled being second nature to most Americans she’d met in California. He was a citizen of the United States on a mission to his nation’s embassy. As a taxpayer he had assumed that when he entered the embassy and laid out the facts, phone calls would be made and China’s release would be effected at once.

At first it had seemed that Cherokee’s belief in the embassy’s power was perfectly well founded. Once they had established where they were supposed to go—to the Special Consular Services Section, whose entrance was not through the impressive doors and beneath the impressive flag on Grosvenor Square but, rather, round the corner on the much more subdued Brook Street—they gave Cherokee’s name at the reception desk, and a phone call into the reaches of the embassy brought an amazingly and gratifyingly quick response. Even Cherokee hadn’t expected to be greeted by the chief of Special Consular Services. Perhaps ushered into her presence by an underling, but not greeted personally right there in reception. But that was what had happened. Special Consul Rachel Freistat—“It’s Ms.,” she’d said and her handshake was of the two-fisted sort, designed to reassure—strode into the enormous waiting room and shepherded both Deborah and Cherokee into her office where she offered them coffee and biscuits and insisted they sit near the electric fire to dry out. It turned out that Rachel Freistat knew everything. Within twenty four hours of China’s arrest, she’d been phoned by the Guernsey police. This, she explained, was regulation, something agreed upon by the nations who’d signed the Hague Treaty. She had, in fact, spoken to China herself by phone, and she’d asked her if she required someone from the embassy to fly over and attend to her on the island.

“She said she didn’t need that,” the special consul had informed Deborah and Cherokee. “Otherwise we would have sent someone at once.”

“But she does need that,” Cherokee protested. “She’s being railroaded. She knows it. Why would she have said...?” He shoved his hand through his hair and muttered, “I don’t get that one at all.”

Rachel Freistat had nodded sympathetically, but her expression telegraphed the message that she’d heard the “being railroaded” declaration before. She said, “We’re limited as to what we can do, Mr. River. Your sister knows that. We’ve been in touch with her attorney—her advocate, it’s called over there—and he’s assured us that he’s been present for each one of her interviews with the police. We’re ready to make any phone calls to the States that your sister wants made, although she specifically said she wants none right now. And should the American press pursue the story, we’ll handle all queries from them as well. The local press on Guernsey is already covering the story, but they’re hobbled by their relative isolation and their lack of funds, so they can’t do more than just print what few details they’re given by the police.”

“But that’s just it,” Cherokee protested. “The police’re doing their best to frame her.”

Ms. Freistat had taken a sip of her coffee then. She’d looked at Cherokee over the rim of her cup. Deborah could see that she was weighing the available alternatives when it came to delivering bad news to someone, and she took her time before she reached her decision. “The American embassy can’t help you with that, I’m afraid,” she finally told him. “While it may be true, we can’t interfere. If you believe wheels are turning that will steamroll your sister into prison, then you need to get help at once. But it needs to come from within their own system, not from ours.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cherokee demanded.

“Perhaps some sort of private investigator...?” Ms. Freistat replied. So they’d left the embassy without attaining the joy they’d hoped for. They’d spent the next hour discovering that finding a private investigator on Guernsey was akin to finding ice cream in the Sahara. That being ascertained, they’d trekked across town to Victoria Street where now they stood with New Scotland Yard rising up before them, grey concrete and glass springing out of the heart of Westminster.

They hurried inside, shaking their umbrella over the rubber rain mat. Deborah left Cherokee staring at the eternal flame while she went to the reception desk and made her request.

“Acting Superintendent Lynley. We don’t have an appointment, but if he’s in and can see us...? Deborah St. James?”

There were two uniforms behind reception, and they both examined Deborah and Cherokee with an intensity suggesting an unspoken belief that the two of them had come strapped with explosives. One of them made a phone call while the other attended to a delivery being offered by Federal Express.

Deborah waited until the phone caller said to her, “Give it a few minutes,” at which point she returned to Cherokee, who said, “D’you think this’ll do any good?”

“No way of knowing,” she replied. “But we’ve got to try something.”